I ran a webinar recently about searching for and advertising jobs using social media. Lots of lovely recruiters turned up to listen to me be evangelical about creating search watch dogs, getting the format right, giving candidates the opportunity to deselect themselves and not waste your precious time. We also reviewed how to capitalise on your LinkedIn Company Page. Lots of blogs about this on the fab Undercover Recruiter blog, but, in short, just think of all of those lovely followers (71% in fact) who want to see jobs on your LinkedIn Company Page.

A couple of days later I received a direct message (DM to the homies) through Twitter from a recruiter on the webinar asking the following: How do we get candidates to follow us?

Oh, such a sweet an innocent (and short) question – and could I answer it in less than 140 characters? HELL NO! So, off to my trusty keyboard and I went and penned my first blog of the year:

You get a prize if you can spot some obvious / crass statements below:

1) Get your own team following you:

Please tick this off and quick! This will encourage other followers.

2) Make profiles and companies worth following:

I get really sick of stupid blogs pointing out the obvious and it riles me to type this line, but the fact is that the average recruiter is still #job‘ing the hell out of their profiles. They offer those lovely (80%) passive candidates nothing of value. Why the hell should I waste time following someone who just talks about themselves or something as uninteresting as jobs all day long? Do you even know what turns me on?

I have a saying, and I promise that I don’t mean ill from it, but I see humans as “sheep with mice” – meaning that we seemed to have developed the “skill” for doing as we’re told online – so I ask my recruiters to capitalise on this and give their ideal followers instructions. Ask them to follow you! Think about how and where you can ask them to do this and get on it. (In short a “CTA” – call to action is what you need.)

6) Email signature:

7) Contact us page:

Is your website’s contact us page really designed to help people contact you, or does it simply have your address and phone number?

Do you want to be contactable? Try adding your social buttons to these pages – social media is a form of contact point (as well as a sales tool).

8) Offline:

Review all of your offline materials (including business cards and flyers). Do you point to your social platforms?

9) Give a damn:

Look like someone who gives a damn. Are you simply bleating all day, or do you take the time to listen and reply to people? Sending a tweet is not engagement.

Liking, responding, commenting, sharing is engagement. Set yourself a target of one per day then increase!

Conclusion:

What can you take from this? Any areas that you need to deal with? Let us know in the comments below. What can you add to this? What success have you had building your community? (Don’t get me started on maintaining it and getting ROI from it… that’s for the next blog.)

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Lisa Jones is a Director at Barclay Jones, a Consultancy working with recruiters advising them on the most effective use of technology, web and social media to improve their business processes, recruitment and bottom line. Follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaMariJones.